Gravity Stretching Routines For Relaxation And Flexibility

Alan Armstrong · Black Belt

Not yet talked about is type of stretching with nothing else but gravity.

By laying on one's back, butt up against a wall, pointing the feet to the ceiling and open legs wide and let gravity make the stretching process work for you, while your job is to relax.

Sure, that soon gets boring, so circle those legs, now scoot up a little further to the wall with your back now up towards the wall.

The two main principles are to relax and let gravity alone improve your flexibility.

This is another one of many ways of gaining flexibility, a Yin approach, by realising un necessary tension.

The idea here is to relax as close as possible to when sleeping while keeping the legs up and out.

My method for doing this at home is on my couch, while on my back and legs are up and apart on the wall.

There are of course many possible positions that can help loosen up hamstrings, hips, and inner thighs.

To elevate boredom doing the happy baby pose works also the bicycle and hip thrusts or what it ever takes for helping elevate tension.

As this is a good way to elevate tense muscles and good practice for improving relaxation, let's call it a little holiday or the quite before the storm, as for tomorrow it is back to extreme stretching and strength training with ankle straps with a pulley station, also utilising flexibility machines.

Are you relaxed about trying it out, or have you been there, done that and have the Tshirt?

There are other ways of using gravity for relaxing and stretching, how do you feel about the methods explained here and your own experiences and approach to this concept; as do they work or beneficial for you?

conrad665 · Orange Belt

It seems like a good idea to use gravity for flexibility. Sometimes I hang from a pull-up bar to ease the burden on my spine and my waist. I think yoga practitioners do similar movements to what you described. I usually need some pulling and pushing mechanism to feel fully relaxed, that is why I always prefer a merciless partner to help me flex my body

Alan Armstrong · Black Belt

@ conradd665 using gravity to our advantage as martial artists is a bonus also during combat so why not in training and conditioning?

As simple as doing a straddle split on a slope while leaning forward, letting gravity work for us instead of against us.

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